In 1982, Moscow "Spartak" started in the UEFA Cup, and after a stunning victory in the 1/32 finals over the formidable London "Arsenal" from England with a total score of 8:4 (3:2 and 5:2), they advanced to the next round Dutch "Haarlem" from the city of the same name. Far from being an outstanding club without much success. It can only be noted that young Ruud Gullit played in his squad last season. But this future “star” of world football has already been attracted to one of the three “whales” of Dutch club football - Feyenoord from Rotterdam. And then came the day of the first match of the two-match confrontation at the Central Stadium named after V.I. Lenin in Luzhniki. On Wednesday, October 20, there was great frost in Moscow. A lot of snow fell the day before, which managed to become covered with an ice crust. But even in such completely non-football weather, 15 thousand true Spartak fans gathered at the sports arena in Luzhniki. They fervently supported their pets, and, as best they could, kept warm at sub-zero air temperatures. And how has this been done in Muscovy since time immemorial? Right. Vodka that the housekeeper made. The police were given instructions not to allow such outrage in the stands. Like, what might foreign guests think about us? The keen eyes of the valiant cops looked out among the crowd of fans, who for the sake of compactness were herded into one western stand, for violators of socialist legality and tried to snatch them for explanatory conversations somewhere in the KPZ (pre-trial detention cell). To which the youth responded by bombarding people in uniform with snowballs. The law enforcement officers did not like this disgrace at all. Tension between fans and police grew by the minute.
A ticket to that fateful match.
Before the start of the game “Spartak” - “Haarlem”, team captains Oleg Romantsev and Piet Hoyg greet each other and exchange pennants.
The players on the field, and indeed no one in general, yet know what horror will soon begin at the exit from the stadium.
And at this time, the Spartak team attacked their rivals on the frosty field and tried to take the lead. After several wasted opportunities, Edgar Hess's powerful free kick reached its goal - 1:0. This score lasted until the last moments of the meeting. Three or four minutes before the end of the match, fans began to leave the stadium for the exits. For some reason, only one of them was open. Our valiant police drove people from all sectors there. There was an incredible crush. The fans inside couldn't even move. They were only carried along by the human stream, squeezing them more and more. And here Sergei Shvetsov scores the second winning goal. Many reached back to see how the Spartak team celebrated their success. People began to fall on the slippery stairs. Under the pressure of the crowd, other Spartak fans instantly attacked them. Many were simply flattened against the iron fence. One witness said that he saw with his own eyes how the father, in furious despair, tried to the last to push the oncoming crowd away from his little son, pressed against that ill-fated fence. So they were crushed together against the iron bars.
This horror did not happen for long, about five minutes. But in these three hundred-odd seconds, three hundred-odd Soviet citizens said goodbye to their lives. Of course, according to the official version, 67 people were killed. But ordinary people, the families of the victims, claimed that the figure was more than three hundred crushed alive. The valiant policemen, sensing their direct guilt in the tragedy that happened in Luzhniki, began to get out as best they could. All the corpses were piled near the Lenin monument. When they learned from the documents of the deceased that they were not Muscovites, they quickly wrote down a completely wrong cause of death for them. And it turned out that the poor guests of the capital did not die at the stadium at all. You never know where you can say goodbye to life in the bustling capital? A citizen was walking along its streets, slipped, fell and did not come to his senses because he hit his head. An ice icicle could have fallen from the roof of a high-rise building and pierced a skull. And there are plenty of bandits and hooligans. So several dozen corpses can already be attributed to reasons other than death at the stadium. Relatives of the non-resident victims claim that their son asked for two rubles and fifty kopecks for a ticket and a ruble for travel? And where is the guarantee that their kinder went to a football game in such a frosty place, and not in one of the capital’s bars to hang out with his comrades, who then began to row with the local punks, for which they paid with their lives? No guarantee? So there you go!
After the final whistle. The Dutch are shocked by what they see.
And at this time, at one open exit from the stadium, such a terrifying picture was observed.
This is the staircase on which dozens, if not hundreds, of Spartak fans said goodbye to their lives.
Now, on every anniversary of “Black” Wednesday, fans lay fresh flowers and carnations on the stairs where Spartak fans died.
And at least in the place of that iron fence, against which living people were literally crushed, there is now another one. Still, every year on October 20, fresh flowers stick out there in memory of those who died untimely on that “black” Wednesday.
The victims were sent to hospitals, where they were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement about the post-match horror they suffered. No one was counting those who died as a result of injuries during the stampede at the central sports arena in Luzhniki. Rumors spread throughout Moscow. It was necessary to publish in the newspaper “Evening Moscow” that on October 20, 1982, after a football match at the large sports arena named after Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, when spectators were leaving, as a result of a violation of the order of people’s movement, an accident occurred. There are casualties. An investigation into the circumstances of the emergency is underway. There is no word on the number of victims. After an operational “investigation”, the “main culprit” of the tragedy in Luzhniki was quickly discovered - junior police officer Yuri Panchikhin. The families of the victims were not even given a proper burial for their sons, daughters and husbands. The coffins were loaded onto trucks and quickly taken to the cemetery, where there were many more people in gray identical suits than relatives and friends of the victims. The KGB officers were doing their job. They had an order to prevent information leakage from outside. We can say that they achieved their goal. The Soviet people learned the whole truth about the tragedy that occurred late in the evening of October 20, 1982, almost seven years later. Only at the beginning of April 1989, that is, at the very height of “perestroika” with its “glasnost” and “pluralism of opinions”, a large article by Mikulik and Toporov “The Black Secret of Luzhniki” appeared on the pages of the all-Union newspaper “Soviet Sport” with a circulation of nine million, in which it was told about the tragedy that occurred on October 20, 1982 at the central stadium of the country.
32 years have passed since that Black Wednesday. But no one still knows the exact number of victims. One expert proves that on the night after the tragedy in the morgues, he personally observed 66 corpses brought from the Luzhniki stadium. He didn’t have time to go to another morgue. What, there were less than a hundred dead? We will never know this again. Although personally, on the evening of December 8, 1982, I heard the number of victims at the Spartak - Haarlem match from the Radio Liberty program. Just the Spartak team, after a 0-0 home draw in Tbilisi, had to play the return match of the 1/8 finals of the UEFA Cup with Valencia in Spain. The match was not broadcast on TV. Again, as in September, when Spartak played in London, our television crews were unable to agree with “theirs” on the broadcast price. “These are the damned imperialists. They should rake in all the “loot” with a shovel!” I thought then, when in the sports block of the “Vremya” program all fans were informed that instead of a television broadcast there would be a report on radio “Mayak”. Well, at least that's it. If we don’t see it, we’ll hear it – and my dad and I run to my brother’s and my room to set up the radio. And then they lay on the bed with their father and listened to how Spartak, with an equal game, lost to Valencia - 0:2 and flew out of the UEFA Cup. What a pity! Should I look for some good music to lift my spirits? And I went up to the radio, took hold of the tuning knob, the scale of which was illuminated by the dim light of a light bulb, and began to smoothly scroll it.
Through the creaking of interference and the noise of jammers, a quiet knock was heard, as if someone was asking you to spend the night with light blows on the door of the house. And now a voice, seemingly from the other world, reported that today Spartak Moscow lost in Valencia. I just waved my hand. “The voice of the enemy is also mine. I already know about this!” But it was further reported that in response to numerous questions from journalists to Soviet athletes regarding the victims of the Luzhniki tragedy, the latter denied it and tried to quickly get on the bus. They say that the football players were afraid of the KaGeBists, who always accompany delegations from the Union of any rank and are always nearby. That is why our athletes did not want to talk about such a painful topic for the prestige of the entire country. When the commentator from the enemy voice announced the number of deaths on that black October Wednesday, more than three hundred people, I could not believe my ears. They're lying, of course. What will you take from those damned capitalists? They want to discredit the real Soviet reality by hook or by crook. Although, according to unofficial sources, the number of victims was exactly the same as was reported by enemy radio voices.
Yes, no one wanted to kill Spartak fans late in the evening of October 20, 1982. But people died! And precisely because the valiant policemen began to let everyone through only one exit.
But high-ranking police officers still continue to “sculpt a hunchback” and claim that the stampede began because, when leaving the stands in the aisle, some drunken man stumbled and fell at the feet of people, thus causing the beginning of the tragedy. Spartak fans, they say, have long been known for their unworthy behavior and all they did throughout the game was “warm up” with alcohol in the cold. Based on the current situation, the valiant Soviet police resolutely suppressed such actions of such unscrupulous “red-white” fans. “Why do we need to concentrate such a mass of people on one exit? - Nikolai Merikov, General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, probably retired, continued to say “the truth and only the truth”, as in court, to the creators of the documentary film “Moscow Night 1982”, - No. Because everyone was frozen, they ran. Let's run, you know? This is the influx here. And there one tripped while drunk and they fell on him!” If one of the main cops of that time stated twice in a row in one interview that the whole tragedy happened because of some unknown drunkard, it means that everything really happened like that! Why then did the young policeman Yuri Panchikhin suffer? Everything had to be pinned on a dead drunk. So no. They were afraid of the people's anger, and found a “scapegoat” among the living, and even among their colleagues. Of course, for the sake of a big idea and the peace of the people, and at the same time for the preservation of one’s soft ministerial chairs in high-ranking offices, one can sacrifice a simple pawn. We will always find a replacement for him. But we still need to look for good management. And once the culprits have been found, it means that there is no need to prove anything to anyone! The cop bosses reported to their leadership and calmly took a breath - it was over!
But the Spartak team, in order not to be swept past the UEFA Cup, in Haarlem had to prove that they could defeat the local team not only thanks to the Russian frost. The coach of the Dutch team complained about him, making the cold the main culprit for the away defeat of his players. Well then. He is not an innovator in such a statement. As soon as foreign “guests” experience collapse in Russia in winter, the notorious Moroz Ivanovich immediately becomes the culprit for their failure. They gave Napoleon a kick in the ass for stopping right in Paris: “Well, I quickly ran so far to warm up, because I was very cold in that barbaric Russia!” Hitler disgraced himself near Moscow in the winter of 1941 and immediately: “General Frost stopped us!” It seems that there was no courage of the entire people who stood in the way of the brave Napoleonic fellows and the Nazi invaders. Now Haarlem coach Hans van Doorneveld became like the great conquerors and nodded to the cold at the first opportunity. No. “Spartak” simply had to win. And not only to put the opponent in his place, but also for the sake of the memory of the “white-red” fans who died two weeks ago in Luzhniki.
“I wish I hadn’t scored that goal!” - Sergei Shvetsov said in his hearts after the first confrontation against Haarlem in Moscow, when he learned about the tragedy in Luzhniki at the end of that meeting. When, after his strike in the first half of the away match against the Dutch club, the score became a draw - 1:1, Sergei would hardly have repeated such words. In the second half of the game, Spartak, through the efforts of Shavlo and Gavrilov, brought their advantage in class over the home team to a quite comfortable 3:1. “We dedicate this victory to you, our loyal fans,” the Spartak players said after the game. And since in Soviet times people had already learned to read between the lines of newspapers and look for allegorical meaning in the statements of public people, everyone understood perfectly well what the football players meant. The Spartak players dedicated their victory over Haarlem not only to the living fans of their team, but also to those who passed away after the match in Luzhniki, on that “black” Wednesday, October 20, 1982. May they rest in peace.
Every year on October 20, survivors of that terrible tragedy gather near the monument to their fallen comrades and honor their memory. After all, they could very well find themselves in the place of those who left for another world.
Flowers near the monument to those killed on October 20, 1982 on that frosty evening in Luzhniki are placed by relatives of the victims, from wives and mothers to grandchildren.
No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten! Yes, football fans who passed away against their will will forever remain in the memory of their fellow fans, both peers and subsequent generations. Rest in peace!
P.S. Today, October 20, 2014, in Moscow, on the eve of the Champions League match CSKA - Manchester City, the temperature dropped sharply again and heavy snow began to fall. Russian TV channels say that such weather is typical at the end of November, but not like October. I hope that no one is going to step on the same rake twice, and the tragedy at Luzhniki that happened 32 years ago will never happen again.
Kostenko Alexander Alexandrovich.
30 years ago, a string of deaths of top state leaders dramatically changed the fate of the country
There was not a word in the newspapers about the real circumstances of the sudden death of the first deputy chairman of the KGB of the USSR, member of the CPSU Central Committee and army general Semyon Kuzmich Tsvigun. But someone found out exactly how Semyon Kuzmich passed away, and the rumor that one of Brezhnev’s most trusted people shot himself in the forehead quickly spread throughout Moscow.
The death of Tsvigun was the first dramatic event of 1982. Following Tsvigun, the second person in the party unexpectedly dies - member of the Politburo and Secretary of the Central Committee Mikhail Andreevich Suslov. And this decisive year in the history of the Soviet Union will end with the death of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev himself. He will be replaced in the chair of the country's owner by Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, and a new era will begin.
Of course, at the beginning of the year no one could have foreseen such a development of events. But the death of the first deputy chairman of the KGB left a dark imprint on everything that happened in the country. And immediately there was talk that not everything was so simple - General Tsvigun did not die a natural death...
DEATH OF GENERAL TSVIGUN
The surest proof that Tsvigun passed away in an unusual way was the absence of Brezhnev’s signature on the obituary. Everyone decided that there was something political behind Tsvigun’s death. Moreover, just a few days later Suslov died. Are their deaths related? Did something secret happen in the country that cost the lives of both?
People who were more knowledgeable about the morals of Moscow at that time came to the conclusion that Tsvigun was at the center of a scandal surrounding the daughter of General Secretary Galina Brezhneva. There was talk that it was Tsvigun who ordered the arrest of Boris Ivanovich Buryatse, an intimate friend of Galina Leonidovna. Boris Buryatse was called a “gypsy” because he sang at the Romen Theater (in reality he was a Moldovan). After meeting Galina Leonidovna Buryatse became a soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, led an enviably cheerful lifestyle, drove a Mercedes...
Shortly before all these mysterious deaths, on December 30, 1981, a high-profile robbery occurred in Moscow. Unknown people stole a collection of diamonds from the famous lion trainer, People's Artist of the USSR, Hero of Socialist Labor Irina Bugrimova. They said that Boris Buryatse was among the suspects. He was arrested, but he seemed to have managed to ask Galina for help. And the investigation into the case of stolen diamonds and other scams in which Brezhneva’s name appeared was believed to be supervised by General Tsvigun. And when it became clear to him that all the threads led to the Brezhnev family, Tsvigun, they said, collected materials about the dubious connections of the daughter of the General Secretary and went to the Central Committee of the CPSU, to Suslov. Semyon Kuzmich laid out the results of the investigative team’s work on the table and asked permission to interrogate Galina.
Mikhail Andreevich, they said, flew into a rage and literally kicked Tsvigun out of his office, forbidding him to interrogate the secretary general’s daughter. The general came home and shot himself. And Suslov became so nervous that he had a stroke. He was taken from the Central Committee to a special hospital in an unconscious state, where he soon died...
Then, when Galina Brezhneva’s husband, former First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Yuri Mikhailovich Churbanov, was arrested and convicted, talk that the General Secretary’s family was mired in corruption was confirmed.
ANDROPOV AND HIS DEPUTIES
Semyon Kuzmich Tsvigun was eleven years younger than Brezhnev. He graduated from the Odessa Pedagogical Institute, worked as a teacher, school director, and from the fall of 1939 served in the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. In 1946, he was appointed to the Ministry of State Security of Moldova, where he met Leonid Ilyich when he worked as first secretary of the Republican Central Committee from 1950 to 1952. Brezhnev developed a sympathy for Semyon Kuzmich, which he retained until the end of his life.
Leonid Ilyich did not forget his old acquaintances and helped them. In general, he had an enviable gift for maintaining good relations with the right people, and they served him faithfully. Brezhnev attached particular importance to state security personnel, and he himself selected trusted people there. In this Brezhnev cohort, the leading role was played by two generals - Semyon Kuzmich Tsvigun and Georgy Karpovich Tsinev.
Before the war, Tsinev was the head of the department, and then the secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk city committee. His boss turned out to be the secretary of the regional committee, Brezhnev. In '41, both joined the army. After the war, Brezhnev returned to party work. Tsinev was left in the ranks of the Armed Forces, and in 1953, after the state security organs were purged of Beria’s people, he was transferred to the Lubyanka. When Brezhnev became the first secretary of the Central Committee, Tsinev headed the third department of the KGB - military counterintelligence agencies.
By the time Brezhnev was elected head of the party, Tsvigun and Tsinev had already worked in the KGB for a long time. But their relationship with the then chairman of the committee, Vladimir Efimovich Semichastny, did not work out. Brezhnev replaced Semichastny with Andropov. And he immediately asked to return Tsvigun from Azerbaijan. Yuri Vladimirovich understood Brezhnev perfectly. Three days later, Semyon Kuzmich became deputy chairman of the KGB. A day later, Tsinev was confirmed as a member of the KGB board. In 1970 he would become deputy chairman.
Tsvigun and Tsinev accompanied Andropov everywhere, unceremoniously settling down in his office to be present at an important conversation. So Leonid Ilyich knew every step of the KGB chairman.
GENERAL'S LOVE FOR CINEMA
Tsvigun and Tsinev received the rank of army general, like Andropov, although they were supposed to be one step below the commander in the military hierarchy. Brezhnev gave both of them the Gold Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor. At the same time, Tsvigun and Tsinev did not get along with each other. This also suited Leonid Ilyich.
Having become the first deputy, Tsinev shouted at the generals. Many in the committee hated Georgy Karpovich. Without hesitation, he ruined people's destinies.
Benevolent in character, Tsvigun did not particularly offend anyone, so he left a good memory of himself. Semyon Kuzmich became interested in literary creativity. I started with documentary books about the machinations of the imperialists. And soon novels and film scripts began to appear under the transparent pseudonym S. Dneprov. Informed people know the names of professional writers who “helped” Tsvigun.
Semyon Kuzmich's scripts were quickly turned into feature films. Their main character, whom Tsvigun wrote from himself, was played by Vyacheslav Tikhonov. Semyon Kuzmich did not look like a popular artist, an idol of those years, but he probably saw himself like that in his dreams. Tsvigun (under the pseudonym “Colonel General S.K. Mishin”) was also the main military consultant for the famous film “Seventeen Moments of Spring.”
Brezhnev was not embarrassed by Tsvigun’s passion for the fine arts. He was condescending towards the petty human weaknesses of devoted people. And for Tsvigun and for Tsinev, the main criterion for assessing people was loyalty and fidelity to Leonid Ilyich.
BIG EAR COMMITTEE
Georgy Karpovich Tsinev controlled the ninth directorate of the KGB (politburo security) and, as they say, was in charge of bugging senior government officials. He also looked after the “politically unreliable” - not dissidents, but those officials who were suspected of insufficient loyalty to the Secretary General.
Tsvigun was one of the most devoted people to Leonid Ilyich. Never in his life would he do anything that could harm him. It is now known that no case of Galina Brezhneva existed. But she did know some people who came to the attention of law enforcement agencies.
The head of the main department of internal affairs of the capital was then Vasily Petrovich Trushin, a native of the Komsomol. “We once detained a speculator,” said General Trushin, “through her we got to a gypsy from the Bolshoi Theater, who supplied her with goods. From the gypsy, traces led to Galina Brezhneva.”
“Gypsy” is the already mentioned Boris Buryatse. But he was not imprisoned for stealing diamonds. In 1982, he was sentenced to seven years in prison under Article 154, Part 2 (speculation) of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. He will serve four years and will be released at the end of 1986.
Having learned about the arrest of Boris Buryatse, Minister of Internal Affairs Nikolai Anisimovich Shchelokov, a man loyal to Brezhnev, was frightened. Trushin scolded:
- Do you understand what you're up to? How could you?
Shchelokov called Andropov - he wanted to consult. But the KGB chairman replied that such issues should be resolved with Leonid Ilyich. Shchelokov said displeasedly to Trushin:
- Resolve issues about Galina with her husband, do not involve me in this matter.
Galina's husband was Colonel General Yuri Mikhailovich Churbanov, First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. Trushin reported to Churbanov that the investigation needed Galina’s testimony. The next morning, Yuri Mikhailovich sent him a statement, signed by Galina Leonidovna, stating that she did not know Buryatse and had no business with him.
It was not state security that dealt with the history of Buryat, but the police. It never occurred to anyone in the KGB leadership to investigate the activities of the daughter of the general secretary. Semyon Kuzmich Tsvigun had nothing to do with this at all. So there was no need for him to go to Suslov with mythical documents, nor to put a bullet in his forehead because of Galina Leonidovna.
But the versions are endless... They whispered that Semyon Kuzmich was removed so that he would not interfere with the conspiracy against Brezhnev. And the conspiracy was allegedly organized by Suslov, who decided to take power.
POLITIBURO MEMBER IN GALOSHE
There are also a lot of rumors, versions, myths and legends around Suslov. He was a complex person, with secret complexes, very secretive. There are writers who believe that it was Stalin who wanted to proclaim him his heir, but did not have time.
Of all the versions, this is the funniest. Stalin, firstly, had no intention of dying at all, and secondly, he treated his henchmen with disgust and contempt and could not imagine any of them in his place.
Mikhail Andreevich Suslov was born in November 1902 in the village of Shakhovskaya, Khvalynsky district, Saratov province. As a child, he suffered from tuberculosis and was mortally afraid of the disease returning. That’s why I always wrapped myself up and wore galoshes. The only one in Brezhnev’s circle, he did not go hunting - he was afraid of catching a cold.
Historians often wonder why Mikhail Andreevich Suslov, who sat in the chair of the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee for thirty-five years, setting an absolute record, did not become the head of the party and state? The role of the leader of the country requires the ability to make extraordinary and independent decisions, without looking at the calendar. Khrushchev could do it. Brezhnev - until he started getting sick. And Mikhail Andreevich was accustomed to strictly following the canons. He did not allow either others or himself any liberties or deviations from the general line. The thin-lipped secretary of the Central Committee with the face of an inquisitor remembered all ideological formulations by heart and was pathologically afraid of the living word, afraid of change. I was always interested in how this or that issue was resolved in the past. If the word “for the first time” was heard, Suslov thought about it and postponed the decision.
Other members of the Politburo were often mocked; Suslov did not give rise to jokes. The only thing that made him smile was his passion for galoshes and old-cut suits. His daughter Maya said that her father sternly reprimanded her when she put on a then fashionable trouser suit, and did not allow her to sit at the table like that.
Mikhail Andreevich’s habit of driving at a speed of almost forty kilometers per hour was also amazing. No one dared to overtake his car. The first secretary of the Leningrad regional committee, Vasily Sergeevich Tolstikov, said in such cases:
“Today you will overtake, tomorrow you will overtake, and the day after tomorrow there will be nothing to overtake.”
At Politburo meetings, Suslov sat to the right of the General Secretary. But he didn’t push himself, he invariably repeated: “That’s what Leonid Ilyich decided.” Brezhnev knew that he did not need to be afraid of Suslov: he would not bother him. Mikhail Andreevich was quite happy with the position of the second person.
Suslov spoke briefly and only to the point. No jokes, no extraneous conversations. He addressed everyone by their last name, except, of course, Brezhnev. The operators admired him. But it is impossible to forget what Suslov did to the country. He was the main conductor of a total mind-processing that lasted for decades and created an incredibly distorted picture of the world. The Brezhnev-Suslov system reinforced the habit of hypocrisy and pharisaism - such as stormy and prolonged applause at meetings, enthusiastic greetings of leaders - any leaders.
How would Mikhail Andreevich react to a visitor who spoke to him about troubles in the family of the General Secretary? According to the unwritten rules of party ethics, the KGB chairman discussed all problems related to the family of the general secretary with him one on one - and only if he had enough determination. The highly experienced Mikhail Andreevich would certainly not have gotten involved in the personal affairs of the Secretary General. And no one would dare come to him with such matters.
"YOU WANT TO MAKE ME SICK"
So what happened to General Tsvigun on that January day in 1982?
Semyon Kuzmich had been seriously ill for a long time; he was diagnosed with lung cancer. At first, doctors' forecasts were optimistic. The operation was successful. It seemed that the patient was saved, but, alas, the cancer cells spread throughout the body, his condition deteriorated literally before our eyes. Metastases went to the brain, Tsvigun began to talk.
In a moment of enlightenment, he made a courageous decision to end his suffering. Semyon Kuzmich shot himself in the holiday village of Usovo on January 19, 1982. That day Tsvigun felt better, called a car and went to the dacha. There they drank a little with the driver, who served as a security guard, then went out for a walk, and Semyon Kuzmich suddenly asked if his personal weapon was in order. He nodded in surprise.
“Show me,” Tsvigun ordered.
The driver pulled the weapon out of his holster and handed it to the general. Semyon Kuzmich took the pistol, took the safety off, put a cartridge into the chamber, put the pistol to his temple and fired. This happened at a quarter to five.
Brezhnev was shocked by the death of his old comrade. I was very worried, but did not sign the obituary of the suicide, just as priests refuse to perform funeral services for suicides.
What happened to Mikhail Andreevich Suslov?
Suslov complained to his attending physician of pain in his left arm and behind his chest after even a short walk. Experienced doctors immediately determined that the pain was of a cardiac nature—Mikhail Andreevich had developed severe angina. We conducted research and established atherosclerosis of the heart vessels and coronary insufficiency. But Suslov categorically rejected the diagnosis:
- You're making it all up. I'm not sick. It's you who want to make me sick. I am healthy, but my joint is aching.
Maybe he didn’t want to consider himself sick so that he wouldn’t be forced to retire, maybe he didn’t sincerely believe that he was capable of getting sick like other people. Then the doctors cheated: they ordered an ointment containing heart medications in the United States. And Mikhail Andreevich was told that it would relieve joint pain.
Suslov carefully rubbed the ointment into his sore hand. The medicine helped. Heart pain has decreased. Mikhail Andreevich was pleased and edifyingly remarked to the doctors:
“I told you my arm hurts.” They started using the ointment, and everything went away. And you kept telling me: heart, heart...
In January 1982, the second person in the party went for examination. Initially, doctors did not find anything frightening about him. And then he had a stroke right in the hospital, he lost consciousness and never came to his senses. The brain hemorrhage was so extensive that it left no hope.
AN UNEXPECTED GUEST FROM UKRAINE
Having lost reliable support, Brezhnev looked for a replacement for Suslov. It seems that he chose Andropov and told Yuri Vladimirovich that he would return him from the KGB to the Central Committee. But month after month passed, and Brezhnev hesitated to make a decision. Did you hesitate? Have you been looking at someone else for the role of second person in the party?
At this time, a secret conversation took place between Brezhnev and the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Shcherbitsky, about personnel matters. Andropov became alarmed, realizing what could be behind this. Shcherbitsky was one of Brezhnev's favorites.
Only four months after Suslov's death, on May 24, 1982, Andropov was finally elected secretary of the Central Committee. And unexpectedly for everyone, Vitaly Vasilyevich Fedorchuk, who was transferred from Kyiv, became the chairman of the KGB of the USSR - he was in charge of state security in Ukraine. Fedorchuk's appointment was unpleasant to Andropov. He wanted to leave another person in his place at Lubyanka. But he didn’t dare object.
Vitaly Vasilyevich worked in Kyiv for twelve years. In 1970, he was just as unexpectedly appointed chairman of the KGB of Ukraine. This was not an ordinary change of leadership of the Republican State Security Committee, but a political action.
When Brezhnev became General Secretary, Ukraine was led by Pyotr Efimovich Shelest. And Leonid Ilyich had his own candidate for this post. Vladimir Vasilyevich Shcherbitsky began his party career in the homeland of Leonid Ilyich, in Dneprodzerzhinsk. But besides personal ones, Brezhnev had other motives.
In Moscow, Shelest was suspected of patronizing nationalists. Pyotr Efimovich, perhaps, loved Ukraine and the Ukrainian language more than other Kyiv politicians. He relied on the sentiments of a considerable part of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, who spoke with bitterness about the fate of their people. And Shcherbitsky, as he himself said, stood on the “positions of Bogdan Khmelnitsky,” that is, he was completely oriented towards Moscow. He spoke at plenums and meetings in Russian. He made sure that Moscow liked everything he did.
After Fedorchuk moved to Kyiv, a wave of arrests of dissidents, real and imaginary, took place across Ukraine. After perestroika, many of them will become prominent cultural figures and deputies of the Ukrainian parliament. As they used to say in Ukraine back then: “When nails are cut in Moscow, hands are cut in Kyiv.” The “criminal shortcomings” revealed by Fedorchuk in the field of ideology helped Brezhnev vacate the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine for his friend. He deftly removed Shelest. Shcherbitsky became the owner of the republic.
People in the know say: after Suslov’s death, Leonid Ilyich reassured his Kyiv friend: “Andropov will not become my successor, after me, Volodya, you will be the general secretary.”
SUCCESSORS AT THE FOOT OF THE THRONE
Brezhnev made a choice in favor of Fedorchuk, whom he himself did not know, on the advice of General Tsinev. Due to his age and health, Georgy Karpovich himself could not head the State Security Committee. But Fedorchuk's appointment could be a more significant step than it seemed from the outside. Once he ensured the transfer of power in Ukraine into the hands of Shcherbitsky. Maybe now he had to fulfill the same mission in Moscow?
The former secretary of the Central Committee for personnel, Ivan Vasilyevich Kapitonov, assured that in mid-October 1982 Leonid Ilyich summoned him.
- Do you see this chair? - Brezhnev asked, pointing to his. - Shcherbitsky will sit in it. Solve all personnel issues with this in mind...
Having become chairman of the KGB of the USSR, Fedorchuk continued to look back at the Ukrainian leadership. I called back with Shcherbitsky, listened to his advice and requests. The staff noted Shcherbitsky’s increased activity. Andropov saw this. Yuri Vladimirovich knew how much in personnel matters depended on the KGB.
But Fedorchuk practically did not communicate with Andropov. Yuri Vladimirovich was wary of his replacement. He knew that new people were in charge of government communications, and he suspected that the security officers were now tapping his phones too.
Yuri Vladimirovich knew what advances were being made to Shcherbitsky, and this made him additionally nervous. Who else could lay claim to the general's position? Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko, permanent head of the general department of the Central Committee?
In recent years, Brezhnev trusted Chernenko so much that, as they say, he signed the papers he brought without delving into their essence. There were rumors in the Central Committee that in one of his conversations with Chernenko, Brezhnev confidentially told him:
- Kostya, get ready to accept business from me.
In reality, Leonid Ilyich had no intention of leaving at all. And like any normal person, he didn’t think about imminent death, so no one took his conversations regarding a successor seriously. It was more of a trial balloon. He wanted to see who would support the pension idea. But in the Politburo, the people were experienced, seasoned, no one made a mistake... In his circle, it was beneficial for everyone that he remained in his post as long as possible, although those who had the opportunity to see him up close understood how bad he was.
The country and the world wondered what the new leader of the country would bring with him, what ideas he would put forward. And few people understood that the main office on Old Square was occupied by a seriously ill man, whose earthly time was already expiring...
As we see, there was nothing mysterious in the death of General Tsvigun, Mikhail Andreevich Suslov, and Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev himself in 1982. For that matter, the main mystery is how all these people of very modest capabilities and abilities, a huge layer of officials - illiterate dogmatists or extreme cynics - ended up at the head of our state. And naturally they brought it to its decline.
30 years ago, a string of deaths of top state leaders dramatically changed the fate of the country
There was not a word in the newspapers about the real circumstances of the sudden death of the first deputy chairman of the KGB of the USSR, member of the CPSU Central Committee and army general Semyon Kuzmich Tsvigun. But someone found out exactly how Semyon Kuzmich passed away, and the rumor that one of Brezhnev’s most trusted people shot himself in the forehead quickly spread throughout Moscow.
The death of Tsvigun was the first dramatic event of 1982. Following Tsvigun, the second person in the party unexpectedly dies - member of the Politburo and Secretary of the Central Committee Mikhail Andreevich Suslov. And this decisive year in the history of the Soviet Union will end with the death of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev himself. He will be replaced in the chair of the country's owner by Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, and a new era will begin.
Of course, at the beginning of the year no one could have foreseen such a development of events. But the death of the first deputy chairman of the KGB left a dark imprint on everything that happened in the country. And immediately there was talk that not everything was so simple - General Tsvigun did not die a natural death...
DEATH OF GENERAL TSVIGUN
The surest proof that Tsvigun passed away in an unusual way was the absence of Brezhnev’s signature on the obituary. Everyone decided that there was something political behind Tsvigun’s death. Moreover, just a few days later Suslov died. Are their deaths related? Did something secret happen in the country that cost the lives of both?
People who were more knowledgeable about the morals of Moscow at that time came to the conclusion that Tsvigun was at the center of a scandal surrounding the daughter of General Secretary Galina Brezhneva. There was talk that it was Tsvigun who ordered the arrest of Boris Ivanovich Buryatse, an intimate friend of Galina Leonidovna. Boris Buryatse was called a “gypsy” because he sang at the Romen Theater (in reality he was a Moldovan). After meeting Galina Leonidovna Buryatse became a soloist of the Bolshoi Theater, led an enviably cheerful lifestyle, drove a Mercedes...
Shortly before all these mysterious deaths, on December 30, 1981, a high-profile robbery occurred in Moscow. Unknown people stole a collection of diamonds from the famous lion trainer, People's Artist of the USSR, Hero of Socialist Labor Irina Bugrimova. They said that Boris Buryatse was among the suspects. He was arrested, but he seemed to have managed to ask Galina for help. And the investigation into the case of stolen diamonds and other scams in which Brezhneva’s name appeared was believed to be supervised by General Tsvigun. And when it became clear to him that all the threads led to the Brezhnev family, Tsvigun, they said, collected materials about the dubious connections of the daughter of the General Secretary and went to the Central Committee of the CPSU, to Suslov. Semyon Kuzmich laid out the results of the investigative team’s work on the table and asked permission to interrogate Galina.
Mikhail Andreevich, they said, flew into a rage and literally kicked Tsvigun out of his office, forbidding him to interrogate the secretary general’s daughter. The general came home and shot himself. And Suslov became so nervous that he had a stroke. He was taken from the Central Committee to a special hospital in an unconscious state, where he soon died...
Then, when Galina Brezhneva’s husband, former First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Yuri Mikhailovich Churbanov, was arrested and convicted, talk that the General Secretary’s family was mired in corruption was confirmed.
ANDROPOV AND HIS DEPUTIES
Semyon Kuzmich Tsvigun was eleven years younger than Brezhnev. He graduated from the Odessa Pedagogical Institute, worked as a teacher, school director, and from the fall of 1939 served in the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. In 1946, he was appointed to the Ministry of State Security of Moldova, where he met Leonid Ilyich when he worked as first secretary of the Republican Central Committee from 1950 to 1952. Brezhnev developed a sympathy for Semyon Kuzmich, which he retained until the end of his life.
Leonid Ilyich did not forget his old acquaintances and helped them. In general, he had an enviable gift for maintaining good relations with the right people, and they served him faithfully. Brezhnev attached particular importance to state security personnel, and he himself selected trusted people there. In this Brezhnev cohort, the leading role was played by two generals - Semyon Kuzmich Tsvigun and Georgy Karpovich Tsinev.
Before the war, Tsinev was the head of the department, and then the secretary of the Dnepropetrovsk city committee. His boss turned out to be the secretary of the regional committee, Brezhnev. In '41, both joined the army. After the war, Brezhnev returned to party work. Tsinev was left in the ranks of the Armed Forces, and in 1953, after the state security organs were purged of Beria’s people, he was transferred to the Lubyanka. When Brezhnev became the first secretary of the Central Committee, Tsinev headed the third department of the KGB - military counterintelligence agencies.
By the time Brezhnev was elected head of the party, Tsvigun and Tsinev had already worked in the KGB for a long time. But their relationship with the then chairman of the committee, Vladimir Efimovich Semichastny, did not work out. Brezhnev replaced Semichastny with Andropov. And he immediately asked to return Tsvigun from Azerbaijan. Yuri Vladimirovich understood Brezhnev perfectly. Three days later, Semyon Kuzmich became deputy chairman of the KGB. A day later, Tsinev was confirmed as a member of the KGB board. In 1970 he would become deputy chairman.
Tsvigun and Tsinev accompanied Andropov everywhere, unceremoniously settling down in his office to be present at an important conversation. So Leonid Ilyich knew every step of the KGB chairman.
GENERAL'S LOVE FOR CINEMA
Tsvigun and Tsinev received the rank of army general, like Andropov, although they were supposed to be one step below the commander in the military hierarchy. Brezhnev gave both of them the Gold Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor. At the same time, Tsvigun and Tsinev did not get along with each other. This also suited Leonid Ilyich.
Having become the first deputy, Tsinev shouted at the generals. Many in the committee hated Georgy Karpovich. Without hesitation, he ruined people's destinies.
Benevolent in character, Tsvigun did not particularly offend anyone, so he left a good memory of himself. Semyon Kuzmich became interested in literary creativity. I started with documentary books about the machinations of the imperialists. And soon novels and film scripts began to appear under the transparent pseudonym S. Dneprov. Informed people know the names of professional writers who “helped” Tsvigun.
Semyon Kuzmich's scripts were quickly turned into feature films. Their main character, whom Tsvigun wrote from himself, was played by Vyacheslav Tikhonov. Semyon Kuzmich did not look like a popular artist, an idol of those years, but he probably saw himself like that in his dreams. Tsvigun (under the pseudonym “Colonel General S.K. Mishin”) was also the main military consultant for the famous film “Seventeen Moments of Spring.”
Brezhnev was not embarrassed by Tsvigun’s passion for the fine arts. He was condescending towards the petty human weaknesses of devoted people. And for Tsvigun and for Tsinev, the main criterion for assessing people was loyalty and fidelity to Leonid Ilyich.
BIG EAR COMMITTEE
Georgy Karpovich Tsinev controlled the ninth directorate of the KGB (politburo security) and, as they say, was in charge of bugging senior government officials. He also looked after the “politically unreliable” - not dissidents, but those officials who were suspected of insufficient loyalty to the Secretary General.
Tsvigun was one of the most devoted people to Leonid Ilyich. Never in his life would he do anything that could harm him. It is now known that no case of Galina Brezhneva existed. But she did know some people who came to the attention of law enforcement agencies.
The head of the main department of internal affairs of the capital was then Vasily Petrovich Trushin, a native of the Komsomol. “We once detained a speculator,” said General Trushin, “through her we got to a gypsy from the Bolshoi Theater, who supplied her with goods. From the gypsy, traces led to Galina Brezhneva.”
“Gypsy” is the already mentioned Boris Buryatse. But he was not imprisoned for stealing diamonds. In 1982, he was sentenced to seven years in prison under Article 154, Part 2 (speculation) of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. He will serve four years and will be released at the end of 1986.
Having learned about the arrest of Boris Buryatse, Minister of Internal Affairs Nikolai Anisimovich Shchelokov, a man loyal to Brezhnev, was frightened. Trushin scolded:
- Do you understand what you're up to? How could you?
Shchelokov called Andropov - he wanted to consult. But the KGB chairman replied that such issues should be resolved with Leonid Ilyich. Shchelokov said displeasedly to Trushin:
- Resolve issues about Galina with her husband, do not involve me in this matter.
Galina's husband was Colonel General Yuri Mikhailovich Churbanov, First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. Trushin reported to Churbanov that the investigation needed Galina’s testimony. The next morning, Yuri Mikhailovich sent him a statement, signed by Galina Leonidovna, stating that she did not know Buryatse and had no business with him.
It was not state security that dealt with the history of Buryat, but the police. It never occurred to anyone in the KGB leadership to investigate the activities of the daughter of the general secretary. Semyon Kuzmich Tsvigun had nothing to do with this at all. So there was no need for him to go to Suslov with mythical documents, nor to put a bullet in his forehead because of Galina Leonidovna.
But the versions are endless... They whispered that Semyon Kuzmich was removed so that he would not interfere with the conspiracy against Brezhnev. And the conspiracy was allegedly organized by Suslov, who decided to take power.
POLITIBURO MEMBER IN GALOSHE
There are also a lot of rumors, versions, myths and legends around Suslov. He was a complex person, with secret complexes, very secretive. There are writers who believe that it was Stalin who wanted to proclaim him his heir, but did not have time.
Of all the versions, this is the funniest. Stalin, firstly, had no intention of dying at all, and secondly, he treated his henchmen with disgust and contempt and could not imagine any of them in his place.
Mikhail Andreevich Suslov was born in November 1902 in the village of Shakhovskaya, Khvalynsky district, Saratov province. As a child, he suffered from tuberculosis and was mortally afraid of the disease returning. That’s why I always wrapped myself up and wore galoshes. The only one in Brezhnev’s circle, he did not go hunting - he was afraid of catching a cold.
Historians often wonder why Mikhail Andreevich Suslov, who sat in the chair of the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee for thirty-five years, setting an absolute record, did not become the head of the party and state? The role of the leader of the country requires the ability to make extraordinary and independent decisions, without looking at the calendar. Khrushchev could do it. Brezhnev - until he started getting sick. And Mikhail Andreevich was accustomed to strictly following the canons. He did not allow either others or himself any liberties or deviations from the general line. The thin-lipped secretary of the Central Committee with the face of an inquisitor remembered all ideological formulations by heart and was pathologically afraid of the living word, afraid of change. I was always interested in how this or that issue was resolved in the past. If the word “for the first time” was heard, Suslov thought about it and postponed the decision.
Other members of the Politburo were often mocked; Suslov did not give rise to jokes. The only thing that made him smile was his passion for galoshes and old-cut suits. His daughter Maya said that her father sternly reprimanded her when she put on a then fashionable trouser suit, and did not allow her to sit at the table like that.
Mikhail Andreevich’s habit of driving at a speed of almost forty kilometers per hour was also amazing. No one dared to overtake his car. The first secretary of the Leningrad regional committee, Vasily Sergeevich Tolstikov, said in such cases:
“Today you will overtake, tomorrow you will overtake, and the day after tomorrow there will be nothing to overtake.”
At Politburo meetings, Suslov sat to the right of the General Secretary. But he didn’t push himself, he invariably repeated: “That’s what Leonid Ilyich decided.” Brezhnev knew that he did not need to be afraid of Suslov: he would not bother him. Mikhail Andreevich was quite happy with the position of the second person.
Suslov spoke briefly and only to the point. No jokes, no extraneous conversations. He addressed everyone by their last name, except, of course, Brezhnev. The operators admired him. But it is impossible to forget what Suslov did to the country. He was the main conductor of a total mind-processing that lasted for decades and created an incredibly distorted picture of the world. The Brezhnev-Suslov system reinforced the habit of hypocrisy and pharisaism - such as stormy and prolonged applause at meetings, enthusiastic greetings of leaders - any leaders.
How would Mikhail Andreevich react to a visitor who spoke to him about troubles in the family of the General Secretary? According to the unwritten rules of party ethics, the KGB chairman discussed all problems related to the family of the general secretary with him one on one - and only if he had enough determination. The highly experienced Mikhail Andreevich would certainly not have gotten involved in the personal affairs of the Secretary General. And no one would dare come to him with such matters.
"YOU WANT TO MAKE ME SICK"
So what happened to General Tsvigun on that January day in 1982?
Semyon Kuzmich had been seriously ill for a long time; he was diagnosed with lung cancer. At first, doctors' forecasts were optimistic. The operation was successful. It seemed that the patient was saved, but, alas, the cancer cells spread throughout the body, his condition deteriorated literally before our eyes. Metastases went to the brain, Tsvigun began to talk.
In a moment of enlightenment, he made a courageous decision to end his suffering. Semyon Kuzmich shot himself in the holiday village of Usovo on January 19, 1982. That day Tsvigun felt better, called a car and went to the dacha. There they drank a little with the driver, who served as a security guard, then went out for a walk, and Semyon Kuzmich suddenly asked if his personal weapon was in order. He nodded in surprise.
“Show me,” Tsvigun ordered.
The driver pulled the weapon out of his holster and handed it to the general. Semyon Kuzmich took the pistol, took the safety off, put a cartridge into the chamber, put the pistol to his temple and fired. This happened at a quarter to five.
Brezhnev was shocked by the death of his old comrade. I was very worried, but did not sign the obituary of the suicide, just as priests refuse to perform funeral services for suicides.
What happened to Mikhail Andreevich Suslov?
Suslov complained to his attending physician of pain in his left arm and behind his chest after even a short walk. Experienced doctors immediately determined that the pain was of a cardiac nature—Mikhail Andreevich had developed severe angina. We conducted research and established atherosclerosis of the heart vessels and coronary insufficiency. But Suslov categorically rejected the diagnosis:
- You're making it all up. I'm not sick. It's you who want to make me sick. I am healthy, but my joint is aching.
Maybe he didn’t want to consider himself sick so that he wouldn’t be forced to retire, maybe he didn’t sincerely believe that he was capable of getting sick like other people. Then the doctors cheated: they ordered an ointment containing heart medications in the United States. And Mikhail Andreevich was told that it would relieve joint pain.
Suslov carefully rubbed the ointment into his sore hand. The medicine helped. Heart pain has decreased. Mikhail Andreevich was pleased and edifyingly remarked to the doctors:
“I told you my arm hurts.” They started using the ointment, and everything went away. And you kept telling me: heart, heart...
In January 1982, the second person in the party went for examination. Initially, doctors did not find anything frightening about him. And then he had a stroke right in the hospital, he lost consciousness and never came to his senses. The brain hemorrhage was so extensive that it left no hope.
AN UNEXPECTED GUEST FROM UKRAINE
Having lost reliable support, Brezhnev looked for a replacement for Suslov. It seems that he chose Andropov and told Yuri Vladimirovich that he would return him from the KGB to the Central Committee. But month after month passed, and Brezhnev hesitated to make a decision. Did you hesitate? Have you been looking at someone else for the role of second person in the party?
At this time, a secret conversation took place between Brezhnev and the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Shcherbitsky, about personnel matters. Andropov became alarmed, realizing what could be behind this. Shcherbitsky was one of Brezhnev's favorites.
Only four months after Suslov's death, on May 24, 1982, Andropov was finally elected secretary of the Central Committee. And unexpectedly for everyone, Vitaly Vasilyevich Fedorchuk, who was transferred from Kyiv, became the chairman of the KGB of the USSR - he was in charge of state security in Ukraine. Fedorchuk's appointment was unpleasant to Andropov. He wanted to leave another person in his place at Lubyanka. But he didn’t dare object.
Vitaly Vasilyevich worked in Kyiv for twelve years. In 1970, he was just as unexpectedly appointed chairman of the KGB of Ukraine. This was not an ordinary change of leadership of the Republican State Security Committee, but a political action.
When Brezhnev became General Secretary, Ukraine was led by Pyotr Efimovich Shelest. And Leonid Ilyich had his own candidate for this post. Vladimir Vasilyevich Shcherbitsky began his party career in the homeland of Leonid Ilyich, in Dneprodzerzhinsk. But besides personal ones, Brezhnev had other motives.
In Moscow, Shelest was suspected of patronizing nationalists. Pyotr Efimovich, perhaps, loved Ukraine and the Ukrainian language more than other Kyiv politicians. He relied on the sentiments of a considerable part of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, who spoke with bitterness about the fate of their people. And Shcherbitsky, as he himself said, stood on the “positions of Bogdan Khmelnitsky,” that is, he was completely oriented towards Moscow. He spoke at plenums and meetings in Russian. He made sure that Moscow liked everything he did.
After Fedorchuk moved to Kyiv, a wave of arrests of dissidents, real and imaginary, took place across Ukraine. After perestroika, many of them will become prominent cultural figures and deputies of the Ukrainian parliament. As they used to say in Ukraine back then: “When nails are cut in Moscow, hands are cut in Kyiv.” The “criminal shortcomings” revealed by Fedorchuk in the field of ideology helped Brezhnev vacate the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine for his friend. He deftly removed Shelest. Shcherbitsky became the owner of the republic.
People in the know say: after Suslov’s death, Leonid Ilyich reassured his Kyiv friend: “Andropov will not become my successor, after me, Volodya, you will be the general secretary.”
SUCCESSORS AT THE FOOT OF THE THRONE
Brezhnev made a choice in favor of Fedorchuk, whom he himself did not know, on the advice of General Tsinev. Due to his age and health, Georgy Karpovich himself could not head the State Security Committee. But Fedorchuk's appointment could be a more significant step than it seemed from the outside. Once he ensured the transfer of power in Ukraine into the hands of Shcherbitsky. Maybe now he had to fulfill the same mission in Moscow?
The former secretary of the Central Committee for personnel, Ivan Vasilyevich Kapitonov, assured that in mid-October 1982 Leonid Ilyich summoned him.
- Do you see this chair? - Brezhnev asked, pointing to his. - Shcherbitsky will sit in it. Solve all personnel issues with this in mind...
Having become chairman of the KGB of the USSR, Fedorchuk continued to look back at the Ukrainian leadership. I called back with Shcherbitsky, listened to his advice and requests. The staff noted Shcherbitsky’s increased activity. Andropov saw this. Yuri Vladimirovich knew how much in personnel matters depended on the KGB.
But Fedorchuk practically did not communicate with Andropov. Yuri Vladimirovich was wary of his replacement. He knew that new people were in charge of government communications, and he suspected that the security officers were now tapping his phones too.
Yuri Vladimirovich knew what advances were being made to Shcherbitsky, and this made him additionally nervous. Who else could lay claim to the general's position? Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko, permanent head of the general department of the Central Committee?
In recent years, Brezhnev trusted Chernenko so much that, as they say, he signed the papers he brought without delving into their essence. There were rumors in the Central Committee that in one of his conversations with Chernenko, Brezhnev confidentially told him:
- Kostya, get ready to accept business from me.
In reality, Leonid Ilyich had no intention of leaving at all. And like any normal person, he didn’t think about imminent death, so no one took his conversations regarding a successor seriously. It was more of a trial balloon. He wanted to see who would support the pension idea. But in the Politburo, the people were experienced, seasoned, no one made a mistake... In his circle, it was beneficial for everyone that he remained in his post as long as possible, although those who had the opportunity to see him up close understood how bad he was.
The country and the world wondered what the new leader of the country would bring with him, what ideas he would put forward. And few people understood that the main office on Old Square was occupied by a seriously ill man, whose earthly time was already expiring...
As we see, there was nothing mysterious in the death of General Tsvigun, Mikhail Andreevich Suslov, and Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev himself in 1982. For that matter, the main mystery is how all these people of very modest capabilities and abilities, a huge layer of officials - illiterate dogmatists or extreme cynics - ended up at the head of our state. And naturally they brought it to its decline.
At the very end of the 1/16 UEFA Cup match between Spartak and the Dutch Haarlem, a stampede occurred in the stands, in which, according to official data, 66 people died. According to unofficial data, collected mainly by relatives of the victims, it is significantly more than 300.
On October 21, 2017, in the match of the 14th round of the RFPL championship, Spartak hosts Amkar. In memory of the terrible tragedy that happened 35 years ago, a memorial plaque will be installed at the Otkritie Arena stadium, and the meeting will begin with a minute of silence...
How it was?
On October 20, 1982 in Moscow it was not just cold, but very cold. For mid-autumn it is extremely cold. Even the day before, the city was covered with snow, and by evening the temperature dropped below minus 10. Many people somehow had no time for football. The match, which on a good day could have attracted a full house (the playoffs of a European club tournament, after all!), lost its original appeal, and the stands of the 82,000-seat Luzha were not even a quarter full. Which in the end, no matter how blasphemous it sounds, affected the scale of the tragedy.
“Spartak” was, of course, considered the favorite in this pair, and confirmed its status at the very beginning of the match: in the 16th minute Edgar Hess opened an account. It seemed that it would continue to roll like this, just have time to keep an eye on the scoreboard, but that was not the case. The match suddenly took on a tense character, and the fans had to entertain themselves with winter fun to keep warm. Snowballs were flying all over the perimeter, and the police also got it, and they reacted extremely negatively to the “aggression”...
Not everyone had the strength and patience to wait for the final whistle. Towards the end of the match, numb fans moved to the exit, creating a dense flow at the so-called “first” staircase of stand C, for some reason the only one left for passage. According to one version, due to the negligence of stadium workers. According to another, because of revenge on the part of police officers for snow shelling during the match.
Be that as it may, a dull crush gradually arose in this artificially created “pipe”: too many people wanting to quickly dive into the subway and the corridor was too narrow, leaving no room for maneuver.
And it must happen that 20 seconds before the end of the match, Spartak forward Sergei Shvetsov succeeded in another accurate shot - 2:0! The reaction of the crowd was as predictable as it was unexpected: a dense mass of people, moving in one direction, suddenly stood up and swayed back. The front rows slowed down, the rear rows continued moving by inertia...
“When I saw the strange, somehow unnaturally thrown back face of a guy with a trickle of blood from his nose and realized that he was unconscious, I became scared,” one of the eyewitnesses of the tragedy later recalled. “The weakest died here, in the corridor.” Their limp bodies continued to move towards the exit along with the living. But the worst thing happened on the stairs. Someone tripped and fell. Those who stopped to try to help were immediately crushed by the flow, felled and trampled. Others continued to stumble over them, the mountain of bodies grew. The stair railings gave way.
It was a real meat grinder. A terrible, unreal picture...
Top secret
In our time, when every fan has his own media in his pocket, one cannot even think that the authorities have kept information about the terrible Luzhniki tragedy as secret as possible. On October 21, “Evening Moscow” published the following information in small print: “Yesterday, an accident occurred at Luzhniki after the end of a football match. There are casualties among the fans.” And for a long time it was the only mention of the Luzhnikov tragedy in the Soviet press.
The country learned about what happened in Moscow on October 20, 1982 only 7 years later, when Soviet Sport journalists began investigating. And they very quickly, literally after the first publication, shut their mouths.
Who is guilty?
The special services carried out “work” with the stadium employees and eyewitnesses, the officials were carefully briefed, and the investigation was kept as secret as possible. That is why it is still unclear how, why and through whose fault the terrible tragedy became possible.
“I was among the police officers who ensured public order on that tragic evening,” recalls Police Colonel Vyacheslav Bondarev. — Over time, many blamed the police for the tragedy, but, in my opinion, it was the administration of the Big Sports Arena that was to blame for what happened. It so happened that the bulk of the spectators gathered in the Eastern and Western stands, each of which could accommodate about 22 thousand in those days. The North and South stands were completely empty. As the game came to an end, people gradually began to leave their seats and head towards the exit. And suddenly Spartak scores the second goal. General rejoicing began, and the fans who had gathered to go home moved in the opposite direction. Confusion, crush. Here they would let people into the South Stand, and even open the exits there... Then the flow of people would pass through the exits from the four stands. Alas, this was not done.
Then everything happened like in a bad dream. I saw the ambulances arrive and the evacuation of the victims begin. There was no blood. People suffered so-called non-mechanical injuries. In the mad rush, some fans fell to the ground and others immediately fell on them. Those who found themselves at the very bottom of the resulting pile of bodies apparently died from the crush, some simply suffocated. The stairs leading to the exit were covered with ice and snow; stadium workers didn't even bother to sprinkle sand on them. People slipped and fell, and at best were injured...
“These are all cop stories,” the famous “Professor” retorts. Amir Khuslyutdinov, one of the most respected Spartak fans, who found himself at the epicenter of events 35 years ago. - How many times has this happened? People come out of the stands, and then Spartak scores a goal. Everyone screams and rejoices, but continues to move. Nobody ever returned. This version was invented by the police so that no one could see their fault in what happened. Like, two streams collided, and they couldn’t do anything about it.
I had a ticket to stand B, but since the opponent was not very significant, and not many people came to the match, a thousand spectators were placed in stand A, the rest were sent to stand C. The rest were 14 thousand 200 people. Two flights of stairs from the upper sectors led to one so-called common balcony. And of the four exits from it, only one was open. Snowballs also played their role. The people who were supposed to keep order at the stadium and abide by the law were very angry with us because of this snow shelling. There was evidence that fans were being pushed towards the exit. The fans moved towards the goal in a dense stream, pressing against each other. One sharp push, another, and now someone who was weaker fell, the person walking behind tripped over him and also found himself underfoot... But people continued to move, trampling the weak. The instinct of self-preservation is a thing that sometimes completely turns off conscience and compassion. People, surrounded on all sides by a crowd, suffocated, lost consciousness, fell... Panic grew, no one was able to take control of the situation.
On the very balcony where the two streams connected, there were railings. Well welded railings. However, they could not withstand the pressure of a large number of people. Those who fell from the balcony escaped with broken bones. Those who remained at the top found themselves under the rubble...
We found the last one
The investigation into the tragedy was conducted by the investigative team of the Moscow Prosecutor's Office, and based on purely external signs - interrogations of 150 witnesses, more than 10 volumes of the case - there seemed to be no questions about the investigation. But it is clear that an objective investigation of the Luzhnikov tragedy in the conditions of that time was completely impossible. The culprits were simply assigned.
The sword of “justice” ultimately fell on Commandant of the Great Sports Arena Panchikhin, who, in essence, had nothing to do with the organization of the match, and in general worked in this position for a couple of months. It is known that Panchikhin was sentenced to 3 years of correctional labor, of which he served one and a half years. Director of BSA Kokryshev, sentenced to the same 3 years, was granted amnesty. And history is silent about other punishments, even if there were any.
“The authorities were not afraid of us, but of the performances of Spartak fans,” she recalled in an interview with Sport Express. Raisa Viktorova, mother of 17-year-old Oleg who died at Luzhniki. “They didn’t let me into the court at all, because the summons was sent only in the name of my husband. I started a scandal. I didn't care at that moment. Not much time had passed, and we were ready to tear the entire police to pieces. The case consisted of 12 volumes. Nevertheless, one day was enough for the trial. They came to the conclusion that it was just an accident and punished one commandant. Many years later investigator named Speer, who was involved in our case, became seriously ill. He was tormented by his conscience, and he wanted to apologize to us, his parents, for following the lead of the authorities, but he didn’t have time. And from the first day we knew that the police were to blame. When a year later they came to the place where our guys died to honor their memory, KGB officers stood around with inscrutable faces in black jackets and ties. They didn't even allow us to lay flowers. We threw them over the fence. All sorts of obstacles were created for almost ten years. For the tenth anniversary, a memorial was erected in Luzhniki, and I bow deeply to the people who paid attention to us...
And now about football
In the return match, Spartak beat the Dutch no less confidently - 3:1 - and made it to the 1/8 finals, where they failed to cope with the Spanish Valencia (0:0 and 0:2).
But who cares about this now?
"God's" hand of Maradona
The Soviet people received with deep satisfaction the results of the May Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, at which the food program was adopted. Alas, the solid document did not add either food or optimism: “sausage” trains, as before, departed from Moscow, grocery stores were subjected to increasingly massive attacks by citizens and guests of the capital.
On the other side of the planet, British possessions were attacked: Argentine troops landed on the Falkland Islands, forcing the local garrison to capitulate. Both sides began to beat each other mercilessly, but the advantage of the British was not in doubt. Soon Her Majesty's assault troops hoisted the British banner over the capital of Falkland, Port Stanley.
The Argentines, who failed to prove their strength on the battlefield, took revenge on the football field - they beat the British in the quarterfinals of the 1982 FIFA World Cup. True, Maradona shamelessly scored the decisive goal with the hand he called “God’s”...
Let's return to our homeland, where life gives Soviet people small but pleasant surprises. This time it came in the form of Adidas sneakers, which the Sport plant began producing under license. Truly, in order to grab a box of coveted shoes, one had to have solid physical strength and remarkable patience! After all, the queues for sneakers were stunning!
...On the evening of November 10, the broadcast of a hockey match was suddenly canceled, and the next morning the country heard the poignant melody of a requiem, which preceded the announcement of the death of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Brezhnev...
Valery Burt
—After the fraternal assistance of Czechoslovakia, a decree was issued in Poland prohibiting swimming in the Bug, located on the Soviet-Polish border. After all, if anyone... After the fraternal assistance of Czechoslovakia, a decree was issued in Poland prohibiting swimming in the Bug, located on the Soviet-Polish border. After all, if someone is drowning and calls for help, the Russians may come!
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—Back in Soviet times, when the camp was first built, there was a huge statue on the main square - a bugler and a girl with a drum. They stood next to each other... Back in Soviet times, when the camp was first built, there was a huge statue on the main square - a bugler and a girl with a drum. They stood side by side, hand in hand, for many years. And, of course, they fell in love with each other. But one day, during a strong thunderstorm, lightning struck the girl, and the statue shattered into fragments. In the afternoon, workers arrived, collected the fragments and took them to the landfill. The bugler was very sad without his girlfriend. At night he came to life, came down from the pedestal and went in search of his beloved. The next morning, the three-meter statue of the boy was not in place. And since then, at night he wanders around the camp and looks into the windows, hoping to see his beloved eyes.
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